


Reign

by NoelleAngelFyre



Series: House of Rogues [5]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: Attempt on an animal's life, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abduction, F/M, Gotham's Underworld, M/M, Unsavory endings (but effective disposal methods), gobblepot (relationship) - Freeform, mafia wars, revenge seeking/revenge killings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-10 23:42:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12310350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoelleAngelFyre/pseuds/NoelleAngelFyre
Summary: Long live the King and his lady Queen.





	Reign

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer and Warnings; semi-graphic descriptions of violence and crude language. No animals were actually hurt during the development of this bittersweet tale. Thank you and good night.

It starts with a dead bird (a raven, to be specific) left pinned on the door like a macabre butterfly: still bloody, still fresh, with a note left illegible from rust-red stains.

The symbolism does not escape Oswald, but the display is crude and distasteful. He has Gabe burn the poor thing out back and nothing more is said on the subject.

Two weeks later, it’s a dove. This bit of perverse messaging actually makes him ponder, confused. A dove is the bearer of peace: the olive branch flying high and free. Is this a rejection of diplomacy then? But who would be so abrasive in their demonstrations? There are a handful of small gangs, young and brash in all things, but they can be tamed with the appropriate amount of hard-handling. A small display of violence (the breaking of fingers or kneecaps) is needed, on rare occasion. Oswald finds it distasteful, but he remains willing to do what needs done.

Such grotesque imagery certainly has a juvenile air about it, but the deliberate display feels more sophisticated than those streets mongrels are known to be. He begins to consider alternative messages, perusing thick volumes of mythology night after night while Gabe brings him tea and Scotch (separate, not mixed).

He ends up in his mother’s well-loved German-print Bible. The raven and dove: two birds sent out by Noah in pursuit of land. The raven, on its second journey, failed to return. The dove returned with an olive branch as evidence of dry land: a long-awaited sight for those stranded on flood-waters for forty days and nights.

The symbolism still escapes him entirely. Gotham being her charmingly perverse self, Oswald might dismiss it as a crude joke, eventually to grow stale. But the invasiveness onto his private property is an insult in-and-of itself. He instructs Gabe to investigate, but to only recruit Butch if absolutely needed.

There is no need to involve Iris…yet.

***

After several long nights on the streets, Gabe has nothing new to share. Such is not what Oswald wanted to hear.

“Want me to call up Gordon?” Gabe inquires, over late drinks. “He came through last time.”

Yes, he did. Yes, he very likely would do so again. But an air of uncertainty perpetually lingers around James Gordon when it comes to the grey areas of Gotham (which, frankly, are everywhere; the fact of which, of course, Jim constantly floats in and out of with the same indecisiveness as people choosing their daily outfits).

He demands more information even when he suspects it cannot be found. Gabe is the only one to be trusted with this, of course, because while the underlings can be paid enough to look the other way and bite their tongues, Oswald knows intimately the power of secrets and how, ultimately, they can be used to topple even the mightiest god from his throne. For even those under his employee to know something is afoul, to suspect rumors of mutiny from some nameless newcomers, there could easily be anarchy. And then he will be obliged to kill off half his staff.

(The option might save him money, but not the headache of new hires.)

Gabe, loyal to the end, also takes it upon himself to put ‘Mrs. K.’ in an established safe house. He doesn’t tell Oswald it’s done until it is, and for that the mafia don is exceptionally grateful. Walls have ears, after all, and it is in Mother’s better interests for her son to only know her whereabouts after the fact, when specifics need not be mentioned for the simple fact of already being known.

Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission, after all.

He ponders Gabe’s suggestion for another two days. In the interests of strengthening this obscure notion of trust (maybe that’s too generous; ‘mutual goal mindedness’, perhaps?) it would be best to contact James. But still he hesitates. James is, forever, a man of principle and solid morals. He may acknowledge the grey areas of life, of this city, but he clings to the white more than he does the black. He embraces Iris as his beloved child and cherishes little Celeste, but there remains a crease between his brow of concern and (though the man would otherwise deny it) distaste for the life Iris has chosen and, by consequence, that which Celeste is destined to have. He cannot fully belong to the darkness, not entirely.

It’s a cold, hard, bitter fact which Oswald has forcibly accepted—by virtue of having no other choice.

James, regrettably, cannot be trusted to understand the reality of these circumstances. He can’t be involved.

Oswald calls up the DeLaine Manor and is granted an audience within the hour. He orders the car and allows Gabe to drive a little more recklessly than usual. They swing, quite literally, into the drive half an hour later, and Oswald wastes no time ascending the steps.

(The minor traffic infraction can be dealt with tomorrow.)

Iris is reading with Celeste in the library upon his arrival, but then sends her daughter off into Selina’s care to grant privacy. Despite the unpleasantness of his business, a moment of peace settles, however briefly, over his person as he watches the little wolf leave with her entrusted nurse. At five years, she is becoming quite a little lady, and an enchanting vision to behold with those sharp blue eyes and great length of golden hair.

Then the door closes, and reality drops neatly at the forefront once again.

***

Two weeks pass without grand incident. Were he of a different breed, Oswald might otherwise believe the whole affair to be some distasteful prank and now it’s passed. But he is a man with a legacy built on suspicion and webs of deceit. Coincidence is not something to which he subscribes.

His lady Queen is cut from the same cloth.

“One does not go to this much trouble and then abandon the course as a passing fancy.” Iris says, audibly irate, over their weekly tea. Circumstances as they have been, such public outings are not made without adequate protection: Gabe and Butch are loitering at a nearby table, and outside there are two additional men from his clan and hers keeping watch from car windows. The shop is busy today, a supposed-blessing for no reason beyond, perhaps, those responsible for tacking two dead birds to a doorstop might have better sense than to open fire in a crowded café.

“We have dealt with this sort before, Iris.” Oswald says, though without the confidence he intended at first breath. And indeed, they have handled such affairs together before this date: partnership a stronghold against those looking to take bits of Gotham for their own without a thought for the established order. There have been small riots, a few protests under pretense of being political, and a mayor recently removed when he became too vocal on a few delicate matters.

(The replacement isn’t to Oswald’s taste, and Iris finds him downright despicable, but limitations being what they are, he was the best to be found. Never mind that he is too old, terribly overweight, and has dipped his fat hands under skirts one too-many times at social engagements; the only other option is to lift James into the mayor’s office, and that will never happen. James has no taste for politics.

Iris suggested Oswald run for office instead. He verbally refused the offer outright and has spent the last three months in deep consideration of doing exactly that.)

“No,” she says, “we have not. We have dealt with juvenile miscreants thinking their ability to tie shoelaces qualifies them to run a city block. We have never had bloody carcasses hung on our doors. We have likewise never had such crude displays end as abruptly as they begin, without a scrap of information to our benefit. In short, Oswald, we have two dead birds, an illegible note (presumably of warning), and now nothing. We remain in the dark. We remain unaware. We are blind as children fumbling in their attic. Is that how you wish to play the game, Oswald?”

He abandons the tea for a long, heavy moment of thought. The game he plays, that Iris plays—the game which must be played in this city is one of twelve steps ahead, never a single behind. Yet here they are.

He was wrong to be so dismissive, even from the beginning. The simple audacity of such a display was enough to warrant immediate reaction. The city should have been flooded until the little rats crawled from their hole.

“Without response from ourselves, those responsible will have had no reason to quit the city.” Oswald says, as the car makes its lazy way up the drive to DeLaine Manor. “Doubtless, they are still here. We simply need to flush them out.”

“As simple as that, is it?” Iris wears her doubts not on the face but upon the tongue, even as she exits the vehicle in regal form. “We have been kept unaware thus far; why should—?”

Her words do not stutter, but abruptly end as eyes fall upon the entry. Curiosity being his nature, and an awareness of Iris’ lacking tendency to simply halt mid-thought invoking concern, Oswald closes the short distance between them.

The world abruptly tilts off-kilter.

Bodies and blood litter the path to an open door. He recognizes the fallen as lower members of the clan: guard dogs, if the expression might be pardoned, who wear their guns with pride and perpetually crook the trigger finger. Yet here they lie: five of them, each executed with sloppy form but efficient tactic. The air reeks of blood.

“Spread out!” Oswald barks, even before Gabe and Butch can fully exit the vehicle; they move in ways which contradict their girth, “Secure the perimeter at once! Get— _Iris_!”

He glimpses only the blur of her shape: rushing past her fallen soldiers, crossing a threshold unknown. His leg prevents an equal pursuit, and he expels a vulgar curse on Fish Mooney for her offense against his person years ago. “Iris, _stop_!” his cries mean nothing, and when he left only to hobble frantically on a cane which does not support as much as hinder, there is no emphasis to follow beyond a desperate call, “Iris, for God’s sake! They could still be here!!”

Nothing. He can’t even be sure she heard him.

He nearly slips, twice, in the half-dried blood. The stench is a familiar one, but the scene affects him by way of simple familiarity with the fallen. This is not the same acquaintance he once held with those of Falcone and Maroni’s clans; they were pawns, each one of them, and their blood on his blade was drawn without regret. Those now scattered at his feet may have held him with suspicion, but their loyalty to their lady, to their leader—their acceptance of a woman, she-wolf leading the pack, and no mutinous response to her upheaval of traditions—was held dear to Oswald’s conscience. Such things are a rarity in the world, even more so in this city. It was a glorious gem to be treasured and respected, and Oswald did exactly that.

And now…they lie dead. Fallen to protect their absent leader. Fallen to protect—

_Oh God._

“Iris!” he stumbles up the steps and through the door. Behind him, heavy footfalls of the dutiful follow. No additional bodies can be found within the front hall, but there is a heavy stillness in the air. It rakes hot coals over his nerves; coils tension in the marrow of his bones until he can barely draw breath.

In the next moment, the stillness is shattered by a scream.

He follows the wordless summons down another hall and up the stairs. Inside the nursery, he finds a terrible scene: a tiger, white fur matted red with her own blood, rasping for breaths denied, and nothing. Nothing and no one.

“Where is she?” Iris is crouched over her devoted pet, that which served as her offspring long before a child grew in her womb, hands already red in the urgent attempts to staunch the life from entirely leaving the poor creature. Her eyes dart around the room, frantic, seeking that which isn’t to be found. “ _Where_ is she?”

“Iris—” Oswald attempts, feeble in the face of a rage unparalleled even in the days of their hostility, but is silenced by the vicious cut of a mother’s shrieking despair.

“ _Celeste_!!” she screams, again and again. But there is no answer.

***

“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you.” Oswald’s voice stops him before a step can be taken in the aforementioned direction; Jim turns and finds the dark-haired man sitting with a half-empty glass of wine in hand and a heavy expression aging him twice-over. “They’ve been in there for an hour.”

Jim pauses, then takes tentative steps toward Gotham’s king. Absent his calm presence, his expression of calculated satisfaction and proud triumph over his enemies before they even strike against his name, Oswald looks…old, but young. He looks more of a contradiction now than before.

“What the hell happened here?” he has no time for cordiality; it is his great suspicion that, were it not for Nygma quite nearly knocking him over en route out of the office, he might otherwise have been left unaware of these proceedings.

“I made a mistake.” Oswald says, candidly, and lifts weary pale eyes to Jim’s hardened gaze. “Mutiny has permeated our air.”

“And you failed to tell me because…?”

He sets the wine aside and stands, more evenly than Jim might have expected, with forward stride rigid. “It is a far cry from obscure symbolism to massacre and abduction, James.” He suddenly says, turning just as abruptly as he speaks; white fingers clutch tight at silver-and-black. “There was nothing to suggest such an atrocity would occur—but _that_ , my friend, was the error of mine! I underestimated. Dismissed! Allowed comfort to settle in my bones instead of remembering the simple truth of this life: that it is a coveted existence, and Gotham does things to people! She ascended Iris and myself to the thrones, to our rightful shared place, and now she tries and threatens and outright-accosts us! Gotham implies we have forgotten our roots, Iris and I; she suggests we are fat and spoiled and empty-headed, drunk on wealth and success—and she puts such thoughts in the heads of anarchists! Well! We have forgotten nothing!! Nothing!”

The cane slams, resounds against the tile; there is fire in pale eyes, a clouded sky alight with Hell’s embers. “She and I are one, in this game. We are the King and Queen of this city. Us! No others! Those who dare lift their mutinous hands against us will fall, one by one! We are not without just minds and forgiving hearts, James, but family is forbidden—and by God, this vermin will learn their lesson in blood! If you cannot be a part of that, then get _out_ now, because I can promise there will be no mercy for this offense!”

The silence rings heavy between them. A crease appears between the younger man’s brow: the only betraying hint of uncertainty at his outburst and what it might mean next. In it, in that unthreatening line between dark brows, Jim reads doubt and, still, a desperate prayer to do exactly the opposite of what he has been commanded. He reads, hears, a plea to stay.

“I’m not going anywhere, Oswald.” He whispers.

The line vanishes, brow smooth once more, and Oswald shudders a slow breath. Nothing more is said, not until Gilzean’s heavy steps interrupt the peace, but the look in stormy eyes speaks louder than any words. In that fleeting moment, they leave the uneasy air of this manor and return to the red-glow halls of Fish Mooney’s club: an umbrella boy with wide eyes disguising a man’s ambition, and the detective brazen enough to defy the natural order.

In this moment, James Gordon is once more set upon a pedestal. He is placed at the King’s side: a white knight with sword drawn.

Gilzean does not address them, but raps thrice on closed doors. “Boss?” he calls, reverent, “Phone call. It’s them.”

Jim stands a little straighter. Oswald grips his cane, in such a way that Jim thinks he might actually take the instrument and use it against the phone. A moment passes, enough to imply Iris deliberately means to make the bastards wait, and then the door opens.

Iris pays him no regard beyond a shared glance. Her hand is steady as she lifts the phone from its cradle, and her voice is cold with the first words, “What do you want?”

Zsasz stands, erect and unmoved, at the wall beside her. Jim can’t keep attention on him, not for long: there is blood in those dark eyes, and murder lines the pale forms of his face. Still, Jim thinks of himself, of those terrible days after a monster stole Iris from Gotham’s streets and left only the bare comfort of her strength, of her resilience, of her determination to _live_.

(But she was a woman. Celeste is…)

“I want to speak with her.” Iris says. A pause, then she repeats the words with a chilled threat: defiance in the face of demands unknown. Another pause follows. Then—

“I need you to remember.” A whisper, urgent but pronounced, “Do you remember, _ma belle_?”

Jim can only assume Celeste answered this riddle in the affirmative, or else she was seized away before any answer could be given: in the next minute, Iris speaks once more with the guilty party, presumably one thereof, and arranges some sort of meeting. He’s remotely surprised when she doesn’t slam the phone upon its rest, but instead maintains the chilled composure with which she began.

“A meeting?” Oswald says, only half a question, “For the place of our execution, is it?”

“I believe that is the general idea, yes.” Iris answers. An unsettling resolve darkens her eyes. She matches her lover, her husband, more in this moment than ever before: two separate souls joined to avenge the life they created together.

“Give me the address.” Jim says. “We’ll set up a perimeter—”

“—No.” she shakes her head. “No police. They were very specific. They want Oswald. They want myself. Alone. No one else.”

“I don’t give a damn what they want—”

“—Then give a damn for my daughter’s sake!” Blue eyes flash, bright as a flame’s core, and Jim takes pause at the burning hate in her gaze, the flash of white teeth; the wolf clawing free of human flesh in a way otherwise reserved for wild tales and great mythology, “They said no police, and we are not involving the police!”

In the peripheral, Jim feels Oswald’s gaze: a warm brush of sunlight on a bitter winter morning. Again, he is undeserving of this admiration, this unchecked adoration which blankets every interaction, every shared word, every fleeting moment of space passed between them. Undeserving…but he takes. He takes, soaks every bit of into his bones, and does not repel.

“Fine.” He whispers; from his belt, he removes the badge of Gotham’s reputed finest and sets it upon the side table. It gleams dull gold in the light, and with its departure he feels liberation. Iris looks from it, unthreatening and useless when detached from its bearer, to his face, and her gaze gleams with wonder.

“No police.”

***

The docks are tossed with an impending storm: grey clouds above and darker waters below. The wind whips and billows against warehouse walls, each steel pane creaking under the assault. Thunder cracks, a rumbling encore across the heavens.

First impressions being of absolute import, they both redressed for the occasion. Against this motley gathering of leather-clad offenders, they stand a great contrast: Oswald in a three-piece suit and Iris in a flowing ensemble paying kind homage to her royal christening.

The self-declared leader is built broad in the shoulders, heavy at the middle, and tall enough to make a bold silhouette. But for all his formidable stature, he does not employ concepts of personal hygiene. His hair is dirty, wet with oil, and his stink mingles with the rest.

A dogs’ den, all of this: coyotes and wild dogs, all scavenging for scraps and panting to be fed at the table instead of the corner.

“You’ll make a pretty corpse,” this man says, addressing Iris with a leer, “very pretty.”

“Too many clothes to ruin.” Another calls out. “I want her naked.”

“I want her ‘round my—” (Oswald cringes, even if only slightly, at the profanity to follow) “—Let’s see how a queen tastes first. Then we slit her throat.”

(Oswald glances at her face, discreet when the supposed executioners are squabbling amongst themselves. He remembers her, in this moment, in days long ago: a child trying to find her way in the world, looking to be something that, ultimately, she was not. He remembers the way Don Falcone spoke of her with such fondness, in tones which declared his hopes for her future. Perhaps she has fulfilled them all; perhaps she has fulfilled none of them.)

She meets his gaze. The time has come.

“Gentlemen,” Oswald speaks, voice elevated to draw attention; his lips thin into a cool smile, “I pose a question: do you know what happens to those who rise against the King and Queen?”

The leader (or so Oswald continues to assume; there is nothing to indicate this man maintains control over his crew) steps forward with a growl building in his throat. “Your time is over, little bird. As is the slut’s.” he nods at Iris, all-but spitting at her feet. “It’s our time to rule.”

“That wasn’t an answer to the question.” Oswald murmurs.

(Outside, thunder roars at increased volume. So loud, so oppressive on the ears, that it’s easy to almost miss the first bursts of gunfire: sharp in the night.

Almost.)

“The answer is no.” Iris says; crystalline orbs glimmer in their dark frames. “No one knows. Because dead men tell no tales.”

And it begins.

***

She leaves the battlefield in a billow of black and scarlet. Her heels speak against the concrete steps, echo throughout hollow stairwells. Thunder outside. Gunfire below. Storms within and beyond steels walls. Yet in her ears, only voices of the past:

_“What are you doing?” she laughs, smiling bright at the face peeking out from behind bookshelves. Golden curls disappear, a peal of childish delight following in its wake._

_“I’m playing with you, Mama.” The child declares, voice echoing throughout the warm space. “I hide, and you find me.”_

_And so they play, for hours uncounted: she searches, moving on silent feet, for the little one hiding in the sanctuary of literature and memories in the making. She finds her each time, behind this shelf and then another, or under a desk. Then, the game changes. She searches, seeks, but cannot find._

_Until a giggle betrays the brilliance of so efficient a hiding place, and Iris sweeps the little magician into her arms with shared laughter._

_“Remember this, my love,” Iris says, later, when they are seated together before a lit hearth and the desire to play games has passed, “you mustn’t forget the lessons of any game you play. You hide from me to make sweet memories and pass the time with laughter and joy. But there are monsters in this world, and you are still a little pup. They will come for you and try to rip you from my arms. When this happens, you must find a place to hide. Hide so they can never find you. Hide so only your mother and father can find their pup. Do you understand?”_

_“I understand, Mama.”_

The upper level is a mess of discarded supplies, broken tools, and abandoned projects of various purposes: it’s a museum of rotting machines and forgotten ambitions. Unbidden, Iris thinks this a place to hide a body and let it rot under the dedication of hungry rats and abusive elements.

She blinks away the thought.

To the far corner, rusted sheets of metal are stacked at precarious angles behind an assortment of unknown objects. She wastes no time kicking, pulling, wrenching obstacles aside with gloved hands and the deliberate strike of heeled boots. Metal scrapes loudly against concrete, a raucous insult against the eardrums. It doesn’t stop her.

She shoves away the last sheet of metal; it crashes to the floor with enough force to rival the storm demanding entrance against the window panes nearby. What was covered, shadowed by discarded trash, comes into the welcoming embrace of pale light. Blue eyes blink, dry of tears.

“I hid away, Mama.” Celeste whispers. She rushes forward, throws herself into arms already open and waiting, and Iris feels the breath leave her lungs more than hears it. Her daughter molds herself into familiar shapes, the soft forms known to her since her first cry of life, and little hands cling as though a relaxed grip might separate them again.

“They called me a nobody, Mama.” She whispers, as she is carried away from an industrial wasteland to a stairwell still ringing with the last echoes of revenge. “They said I was nothing.”

Iris stops before taking the first step. At the last, at the lowest place, a figure in black ascends with slow grace. Celeste lifts a weary head and sniffs, quietly. She reaches a little hand for her father, whimpering his name in the tone of a fragile soul drained of its defiance and needing repair.

“You are not a nobody.” Victor says, softly. “You are not _nothing_.” His finger paints a solitary streak of red on her youthful brow: the war paint of warriors triumphant in battle. “You are a princess. One day, you will be Queen.”

“And today,” Iris murmurs into golden curls, “you stand victorious.”

***

The storm continues well into the night. Illuminated in bold pale streaks, Gotham bears ethereal qualities from this place; from a window mounted high above her dirty streets and corrupted soul, Gotham is beautiful. She is the portrait of black with silver accents: rare, elegant in simplicity, and untainted.

Such a shameless manipulation.

Jim poured himself a whiskey an hour prior. It remains untouched on the coffee table. Once, twice, his fingers have reached for it; once, he brushed the cool glass face. But never has it touched his lips. Drinking sorrows away, drinking sins from conscience recollection, is for a different man. Jim can’t. Well, he can, but he won’t.

For the first time, he doesn’t want to forget.

The door quivers beneath exterior rapping. At an hour so late, curiosity beckons him to answer, stronger even than the urge to be alone tonight. Make no mistake, solitude is exactly what he wants, might so far as say it’s what he _needs_ —until he opens the door and meets pale eyes on the other side.

“I can leave if you’re busy.” Oswald says, without prompt. It’s amusing, really, just to hear such an assumption: that any man would be busy at this hour, after running streets and warehouse floors wet with blood (again). It’s even more amusing (even when it shouldn’t be; and it really shouldn’t be) that Jim would be busy with…anything. Anything beyond drinking himself into an amnesiac stupor.

(Oswald studies him, intently, and Jim realizes that is precisely what the other man suspects.)

“No,” he begins, then shakes his head, “I mean, I’m not busy. Come in.”

It’s a new experience, really, for the both of them: either Oswald invites himself into Jim’s personal space, or they meet in spaces which belong strictly to Gotham’s King. For the invitation to be so readily extended is not a common practice between them. Oswald’s uncertainty, visible even when he likely intends otherwise, states as much. He enters the room with slow gait, eyes carefully observing the space set before him with so critical an eye that Jim wonders if he’s searching for viable exits or examining the lack of interior design.

(That’s not to say Jim Gordon lives in a hovel, but rather that he spends so little time in this place that it might as well be an open-house model, for all it wants in personal touch.)

“Drink?” Jim offers, because it seems the right thing to do.

“No, thank you.” Oswald answers, for which Jim is grateful.

Silence. Jim gestures toward the sofa, the only piece of furniture to have seen any real use since he moved in, by way of being available when Jim returns home at some ungodly hour and falls face-first into the welcoming bosom of upholstery. Oswald pauses, then lowers himself with deliberate dignity. Long pale fingers flutter nervously over his cane.

(Casually, Jim notices it has been traded out since last time: now, an elegantly-crafted bird permanently in flight upon a guiding pole of sleek black.)

“I’m sure this isn’t what you want to hear,” Oswald says, at great length, “but I…I’m grateful, for your assistance tonight. I know it couldn’t have been easy for you.”

A moment of pondering follows, ended with a low echo, “Easy…” Jim shakes his head; it feels oddly heavy, “That’s where you’re wrong. It was easy.”

Oswald straightens, the movement just enough to be noticeable, and a slight frown lines his face. “Jim?”

He catches the whiskey in hand, just to hold it, to hold something in his hand, and returns to the window where Gotham might continue mocking him with her façade of beauty in a storm-tossed midnight. “For the second time, I followed you into the dark. Into places I once swore never to go. I killed men with a badge to justify every bullet. I watched them die. …And I felt nothing.”

The silence doesn’t last as long as expected; he hears the quiet click of Oswald’s cane on polished floors, thrice, and then a low sigh. “With all respect, Jim,” the other man says, “I don’t believe a word of that.”

(Such a declaration surprises Jim. After all this time, he thought such would be exactly what Oswald wanted to hear.)

“If you’ll pardon my lack of eloquence,” Oswald continues, “your ability to give a damn is what separates you from the rest. It always has. Of course, your failing attribute is exactly that: your inability to realize this simple fact. You have never been able to see yourself for who, for what, you are: a beacon of righteousness and ruthless pursuit of all that is good and just. In a city which sorely wants for all the aforementioned, you are…a true rarity.”

The pause which follows is heavy, yet Jim thinks, perhaps, the air has never felt lighter between them. Final words, breathed with nothing short of enraptured devotion, linger in his ear pleasantly as they previously made him cringe and recoil.

Movement beckons attention once more; he finds Oswald standing a notable distance away, fingers gripped white around his cane. Jim wonders if it is for balance, or something else. “I…” he clears his throat: a quiet, polite little break of sound, “Had you accepted me—that is, my friendship—from the beginning, Jim…I never would have permitted our association to corrupt you.” A weak smile tilts pale lips. “After all, such qualities were those which made you so desirable. –That is to say…well, the darkness always craves the light, no?”

The crowned king of Gotham, silver-tongued serpent coiling his shadowy form throughout every crack and crevice of this God-forsaken city…and he stands now, before Jim: stammering, pale hands fluttering together at his front, a faint blush creeping over his cheeks while eyes rove wildly throughout the loft. A boy, not the calculated emperor of his stolen empire.

Had he taken of the whiskey, not only a glass but instead half the damn bottle, Jim would have a guilty party upon which to place the blame for a heart quivering in his chest like a bird, wing broken, hoping for flight once more but resigned to the ground upon which it is now confined.

(He finds the haphazard allusion appropriate, with a hidden smirk. After all, is his heart, his soul, his very conscience, not that broken bird: broken and beaten one too many times by this city and every damnation she inflicts on those who dare cross her barbed threshold? Now, here he is: looking hopefully to the sky and higher ground, cleaner air, but bound to the very city which has broken him.

And, amidst it all, throughout it all…the man before him.)

“I should go.” Oswald abruptly announces; his gait is awkward, stuttering over the polished baseboards, and he grips the proud silver bird much too tightly. “Thank you for…for the hospitality. I-I should—”

“—stay.” Jim says. He longs, inexplicably, to seize, capture, the precise moment his hand laid over that belonging to Gotham’s King: when the pulse encased in cage of white skin and hollow bone fluttered alarmingly; pale eyes darted to those belonging to the man halting his exit. Wide, unsettled…and yet, with such vividness that Jim feels it like a jolt of lightning along his nerves, hope.

“You should stay, Oswald.” He repeats, or rather finishes. Or, rather, finally says.

The door falls closed.

(He barely hears it.)

***

“You’ve already killed my men.” The mouth speaking is spattered with bruises two days’ old, swollen at the left side; the face to which it belongs is a testament to events of as many days: beatings relentless and devoid entirely of reprieve. The man’s body is little better, evidenced by the way, even on forced knees, he hunches and favors the right side over left. “What purpose does this little trial serve?”

The room is a contradiction to its enclosed atmosphere: rich-toned walls illuminated brightly with mounted brass lanterns of antique glass and fine-wax candles, yet no abundance of natural light can permeate the coil of black tension. For all their gold-washed attractiveness, any true splendor of the manor walls is swathed in the towering sentinels lining each one. These are the assailants responsible for every offense against their prisoner’s physical form, and each considers him still with bloodlust and wanting-vengeance for their fallen brethren.

At the front, seated upon shared thrones, the king and queen share a silent exchange. Iris privately takes note of his remarkably relaxed demeanor (one which, to be frank, does not entirely befit these circumstances), and Oswald is pleased to observe his lady’s transformation with the return of her young pup, safe and unscathed.

(For two days’ time, or so it is relatively-common knowledge, the little wolf has been in her parents’ company without pause. Namely, her father’s. The nature and specifics of such conversations, one can barely speculate. As for Oswald, he dares not even speculate. Some mysteries of life—or, as it stands, those pertaining to a child’s affair with her father—are better left without exploration.)

“You are extraordinarily presumptuous,” Oswald says, lips thinned in cool amusement, “to think this is a trial. This is a demonstration, and economic means of obtaining from you that which is owed.”

“I owe you nothing.”

Iris’ eyebrows, among her most expressive feature, arch in identical slopes of slim black. “You stole four men from me.” her voice is barely a whisper, yet it resonates in such a way that Oswald is obliged to gaze warmly upon her with nothing short of enraptured admiration. “They were sons and brothers and husbands. Two of them were fathers. Their lives were worth everything, to those from whom you ripped them away.”

“They shouldn’t have—” he coughs, twice, “—gotten in the—”

“Shakta,” she continues, and even this uncouth specimen dare not interrupt, “was my first child. She protected her sister with selfless bravery, and you left her for dead: bleeding, gasping, watching you carry off her charge like thieves in the night.”

“What kind of freak are you?” he spits, thin rivet of blood creeping down his chin, “Keeping a thing like that as a—?”

(He never finishes; Butch, upon receipt of silent permission, shoves the final word back down the man’s throat with knuckles and broad palm. The sound is reassuring, cracking through silence and lingering for a rather pleasant beat.)

Beyond the far door, a slight commotion of voices: raised, but muffled through well-crafted barriers. Then, with the blissful ignorance endowed upon a child only yet beginning her life, Celeste enters the chamber in a haze of gold and violet lace. Sunlight follows her steps, unseen but felt in her aura, and the chill previously encasing Iris’ features melts into the glorious curve of red lips.

“Come, _ma belle_.” She entreats with arms extended; a golden bird in every graceful stride, Celeste flies into her mother’s embrace and clings: perhaps not entirely fearful of separation, but equally determined to prevent it with little hands catching fistfuls of cloth.

Iris collects her treasure in both arms, and winter settles its resolve over her eyes once more.

“We are not without mercy,” she continues, as though no interruption ever transpired, “and we can often find it within our shared capacity to forgive all manner of betrayals. But my daughter…my only child, my greatest joy? You took her from me. I am her mother, and you stole her from me. You left me with an emptiness, a void, that can never be fathomed until you have carried life and then had it ripped from your arms. And for that…there is no mercy.”

From the shadows, as the tiger emerges with prey in its sights and blood already on its tongue, Victor draws into gold hues. His eyes are dark, terribly dark. Yet there is something bright about his gaze: a sliver of moonlight, slicing through identical pits of endless night.

(Finally, the prey quivers. Finally, the little rat feels walls closing in, like hands around its’ gasping throat.)

“If you’re going to play a game with us,” Oswald murmurs; long fingers caress avian likeness, cast in silver, and his breath catches, just a little when he remembers how it looked cast in the dying embers of a fireplace not his own, “you better play it better than we do.”

(If the little wolf does not look away, but instead watches with intent focus, something that borders on rapture, when her father carves an empty smile in a man’s throat, it’s a matter best left unaddressed.)

“Where do you want ‘im, boss?” Butch asks, nudging the corpse, distaste thick on his tongue and between his eyebrows, while it lies cooling on the floor. At the question, Iris and Victor pause, en route to the door with Celeste shared between them. An ugliness previously never seen passes over the young Queen’s expression, contorting natural beauty into something terrifying to behold.

And then, mercifully, it passes.

“He is still good meat.” She answers, ice on her tongue. “Shakta needs to eat, lest she never regain her strength.”

(It occurs to Oswald, much later in the evening, Iris has finally found the most effective disposal system in all of Gotham. Pity it can’t be used more often. But, really, one mustn’t overindulge the good beast. She’ll get terribly fat.)


End file.
